Hawaii set to move on marriage equality, Pope Francis speaks against Christians of ideology, could Martian Manhunter to become a GLBT super hero?

Jamie Dornanhas been cast asChristian Grey, replacing Charlie Hunnam, who dropped out of the role. As a relatively unknown actor, this could break big for him. In 2006, when a model for Calvin Klein, he was called “The Golden Torso” which means he can pull off the nudity with ease.

New Mexico’s Supreme Court heard arguments in the marriage equality case yesterday. The lawyer for the Republican legislators opposing equality mostly argued a procreation defense, but at least one justice wasn’t having it. “Marriage is much more than a vehicle for natural procreation.” He then noted that the state doesn’t have a litmus test for heterosexual couples’ desire for children before they get married.

The director of Blue Is the Warmest Color has been at war with his stars since the win at Cannes, and now he’s taken it up a notch with an open letter threatening legal action if they keep saying he was a monster to work with. “Miss Seydoux — after thanking me innumerable times in public and private, after crying in my arms in Cannes for having given her such a noble role for having allowed her to sublimate herself in this dramatic art — with no delay and with no personal coherence, radically changed her attitude toward me and risked the destruction of this already-fragile film a few weeks from its release.”

Hawaii will begin the special session called by Governor Abercrombie to consider marriage equality on Monday, with the bill set to be referred immediately to the Judiciary Committee. If the bill passes, marriages could begin as early as November 18.

Paul Feig, the man behind such raunchy hits as The Heat and Bridesmaidshas been tapped to produce and oversee the upcoming Peanuts movie. I really don’t know if I can come to terms with this movie. Will Melissa McCarthy be voicing Peppermint Patty?

Pope Franciscontinues his quest to return the Catholic Church to simpler values. The Pope says “when a Christian becomes a disciple of the ideology, he has lost the faith: he is no longer a disciple of Jesus, he is a disciple of this attitude of thought… For this reason Jesus said to them: ‘You have taken away the key of knowledge.’ The knowledge of Jesus is transformed into an ideological and also moralistic knowledge, because these close the door with many requirements. The faith becomes ideology and ideology frightens, ideology chases away the people, distances, distances the people and distances of the Church of the people,’ Pope Francis said. ‘But it is a serious illness, this of ideological Christians. It is an illness, but it is not new, eh?’”

Since we all know that everything we see in movies is true, this article should serve as definitive proof that cats are evil.

Jason Pickel and Darren Black Bear found a clever way to get married in Oklahoma. As people of Native American descent, they were allowed to marry under the sovereign jurisdiction of the Cheyenne and Arapaho tribes, which don’t have restrictions on same-sex marriage. They are the third same-sex couple to be issued a marriage license by the tribe.

Marvel isn’t playing coy about a Black Panther movie, they’re actively developing it. Kevin Feige says “You have something as rich as Wakanda, and [T’Challa’s] backstory, and clearly Vibranium’s been introduced in the universe already. I don’t know when it will be, exactly, but we have plans to bring him to life someday.”

If you can’t scratch together the money for a Virgin Galactic flight, you may soon have a slightly less expensive option with World View, which will begin offering “tours of the stratosphere” as early as 2015 via a high altitude balloon with a six person capsule, complete with bar service for the two hour ride at 18 miles above the surface for a mere $75,000.

It may not be homophobia keeping Jason Collins from getting a new NBA contract, but fear of the media circus that will follow signing him. “If it were just an initial blast and you knew it would settle down after that, it would be one thing. But you know this is something that he and his teammates are going to be asked about everywhere they go, all season long, and all it takes is one guy to say something a little off and it could really blow up. He’s still good enough to play in the league, but when you throw in the ongoing media frenzy, most teams are going to decide it’s just not worth it.”

Ryan Sohmer writes the excellent Least I Could Do webcomic. He’s touched on gay issues there with his typical humor, but in a blog post he takes on the issues of Russia and Ender’s Game. He doesn’t normally respond to politics, but when he does, he says that he generally goes with the power of the wallet. While he admits he can’t see himself not watching the Winter Olympics (he’s Canadian), he pledges to wear a Pride bracelet for the duration and talk about the issue as much as he can. As for Ender’s Game, he says he won’t be joining a loud boycott effort, as “as angry internet mobs are more frightening to me than a conservative Christian who spends his money trying to deny the rights of men and women to marry each other. But, I do control my own wallet and there’s power in that. Ender’s Game is a movie that I’ve been dying to see for a couple decades, but I won’t be seeing it when it comes out. I’ll use my voice and my wallet.

Michael Jackson topped the list of top earning dead celebrities last year, taking in $160 million, nearly tripling second place’s Elvis Presley with $55 million. Elizabeth Taylor topped the list last year with the sale of her jewels, but slipped to fourth this year with $25 million.

Postal Apocalypse is easily my favorite column on any of the Gawker Media sites. The postman answers geeky questions with fun and humor, and this week one of the questions was how you would get a Justice League movie to reflect the gender and racial diversity of the current United States. Some of it was brilliant, like making Green Lantern a Hispanic divorced mother of three suffering from cancer (read why it works, because it does). But his final thought was adding in Martian Manhunter, but making him super, super androgynous. “I think that the Green Martians in the DC universe have two different genders, but when their species can shape-shift into pretty much anyone they want, I doubt they’re worried about traditional sex characteristics. It makes the character a little more science fiction-y, and a thus little more interesting and unique. And who’s to say the two genders of Martians are the same as the two genders of Earth? I’d love for Martian Manhunter to get an Ursula K. Le Guin-style makeover, where his idea of sex has nothing to do with males of females. And then MM could change between male characteristics and female characteristics as he/she sees fit, even per panel — s/he could be attracted to any human character at any time. Martian Manhunter could effectively be the first LGBT superhero! Now, it admittedly sucks that the first LBGT superhero would be a non-human, but since DC won’t let two human women marry in 2013, I think this is about as much progress as we could hope for at the moment.”

Speaking of DC, it seems the possibility of having Wonder Woman in the Superman vs. Batman movie isn’t out of the question. Greg Silverman says “We are taking it all very seriously and are trying to do a plan that’s respectful to those characters and maximizes the stories as best they can. So everything that has been speculated are things that we’ve thought about.”

Australian Prime Minister Tony Abbottwarns couples not to marry under the newly passed equality law in the ACT. “If as I think the ACT legislation turns out to be invalid under the Constitution, well then those marriages wouldn’t be valid. So I’d suggest to people who would like to be married under the ACT legislation – hold on until its validity is tested. It’s not a question of being for or against gay marriage. It’s a question of adhering to the Constitution. We are going to challenge this because we think that the Constitution should be adhered to.”